Ray Bradbury Forums
This is very sad

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https://raybradburyboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3791083901/m/9481045372

07 August 2004, 01:22 AM
SummerRunner
This is very sad
Found this while surfing around Bradbury related links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195517/

Read the paragraph under "User Comments"
07 August 2004, 03:58 AM
Mr. Dark
That is kind of sad. I just finished watching "About a Boy" which is partly about a troubled kid trying to find his way. Part of the movie is about how kids hurt each other.
07 August 2004, 06:04 AM
ravenswake
That level of callousness really bothers me, even considering they're kids. Makes me wonder how many other kids carry around lousy memories like this, too. Hope someone gave her a kind word.
07 August 2004, 06:46 AM
dandelion
Oh, that IS horrible!
07 August 2004, 07:04 AM
Gothic
"Let's play Poison!"
07 August 2004, 03:12 PM
dandelion
Yes, can't you just picture this as something Bradbury would well write himself? Couldn't help considering that it's that ONE student he's trying to reach, out of an entire CLASS! No wonder he celebrates each such success, no matter how many they may accumulate up to!
07 August 2004, 06:58 PM
Korby
That is so pathetic. Kids can be some vicious little monsters.
07 August 2004, 09:12 PM
lmskipper
It's very ironic, as well as sad, because these kids clearly did not get the entire point of that story. They were just as nasty as the kids in the story were to Margot. I always try my hardest to stop this kind of cruelty from going on in my own classroom, but I know too well that much of the damage usually done is done when there are no teachers or other adults anywhere to be found. What's even worse than the actual event is the student who wrote on that board, bragging about it.
08 August 2004, 06:20 AM
dandelion
Yes, if he'd written in regret--"I laughed automatically, before thinking about it, but was sorry afterwards"--the story would assume a whole different meaning.
08 August 2004, 01:50 PM
Gothic
As someone who spent part of his adolescence in at least one school where nobody wanted me, I can vouch that that kind of rotten experience definitely stays with one. It taught me to be on guard all the time and, somewhat to my detriment, not to trust anyone. In those days I sometimes read up to four books a week. Ah, the joys of adolescence!
17 February 2012, 01:42 AM
dandelion
On pages 251-252 of Sam Weller's book The Bradbury Chronicles, he quotes Ray as saying, "More people ask me about that one story than any other." (Here on the board, it comes second only to "A Sound of Thunder.") "That story reveals the dark side in all of us. And it makes us feel ashamed."
22 February 2012, 08:03 PM
Linnl
Contempory and hard to believe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDK-ja8PLgg
22 February 2012, 08:28 PM
dandelion
So religious persecution is cool as long as the people doing the persecuting are identified as Christians? Bring on the Inquisition!